With summer fast approaching, there is no better time to unwind by the pool, on the boat, or just in your living room with a horrifying trade paperback or collected edition of some incredible horror comics. To help you sift through the stacks of available books, we’ve compiled a list of must-read horror comics you won’t want to miss.
Included in our list are some longtime favorites, recently released comics, and a few exciting collected editions to drop this summer. Additionally, we have highlighted a couple must-reads to enjoy before their sequel series or screen adaptations hit, ensuring you’re ready to experience whatever follows!
The list is in no particular order.
Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees Vol. 1
Writer: Patrick Horvath
Artist: Patrick Horvath
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Don’t. Murder. The locals.
This is small-town serial killer, upstanding citizen, and adorable brown bear Samantha Strong’s cardinal rule. After all, there’s a sea of perfectly ripe potential victims in the big city just beyond the forest, and when you’ve worked as hard as Sam to build a cozy life and a thriving business in a community surrounded by friendly fellow animal folk, warm decor, and the aroma of cedar trees and freshly baked apple pie…the last thing you want is to disturb the peace.
So you can imagine her indignation when one of Woodbrook’s own meets a grisly, mysterious demise—and you wouldn’t blame her for doing anything it takes to hunt down her rival before the town self-destructs and Sheriff Patterson starts (literally) barking up the wrong tree.
Cute critters aren’t immune to crime in this original graphic novel debut by writer-artist Patrick Horvath.
Be sure to read the original series prior to the sequel, Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees: Rite of Spring, hits shelves on July 9, 2025!
Revival Compendium
Writer: Tim Seeley
Artist: Mike Norton
Publisher: Image Comics
For one day in rural central Wisconsin, the dead came back to life. Now, it’s up to Officer Dana Cypress to deal with the media scrutiny, religious zealots, and government quarantine that has come with them. In a town where the living have to learn to deal with those who are supposed to be dead, Officer Cypress must solve the brutal murder of her own sister. Now everyone, alive or undead, is a suspect, while Em Cypress, murder victim, keeps getting in Dana’s way.
The sell-out hit series created by New York Times bestselling author Tim Seeley and Eisner-winning artist Mike Norton is collected in this Image Compendium featuring Revival #1-47, the Free Comic Book Day short story, the crossover with CHEW, a Jenny Frison cover gallery, plus many behind-the-scenes bonuses and other features.
Prepare for the television adaptation premiering on June 12, 2025 by reading Revival!
Nailbiter Compendium
Writer: Joshua Williamson
Artist: Mike Henderson
Publisher: Image Comics
Sixteen of the world’s most notorious serial killers were all born and raised in Buckaroo, Oregon. The worst and most infamous being Edward Charles Warren… the Nailbiter! What is happening in this small town that has created so many serial killers?
Joshua Williamson and Mike Henderson deliver a mystery that mixes Twin Peaks with the horror of Se7en! Fans of Gideon Falls, Something is Killing the Children and The Walking Dead will enjoy this bloody drama!
This compendium collects the original critically acclaimed hit thriller in one massive package.
Collects Nailbiter #1-#30 and Nailbiter Hack/Slash #1.
Something is Killing the Children: Book One Deluxe Edition
Writer: James Tynion IV
Artist: Werther Dell-Edera
Publisher: BOOM! Studios
WHAT IS ABDUCTING THE CHILDREN OF ARCHER’S PEAK?
When the children in a sleepy Wisconsin town begin to go missing all hope seems lost. Most children never return, and those that do have terrible stories of terrifying creatures that live in the shadows. But even monsters fear the mysterious stranger that arrives shortly after. She believes the children and claims to be the only who sees what they can see.
Her name is Erica Slaughter. She kills monsters. This is all she does, and she bears the cost because it must be done.
The definitive collection of the entire “Archer’s Peak” saga for the first time in a single volume, this deluxe edition hardcover includes Something is Killing the Children #1-15 by GLAAD Award-winning writer James Tynion IV (Department of Truth, Batman) and artist Werther Dell-Edera (Razorblades).
The Exorcism at 1600 Penn
Writer: Hannah Rose May
Artist: Vanesa Del Rey
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Kelly Doyle has just been elected the first female president of the United States of America, and boiling political tension could spill over at any second. Having to balance being a mother to two teenagers and navigating the shifting media landscape, all while preventing World War III, has Kelly spread thin, but she could never predict that the nation’s hallowed halls would soon become a demonic battleground for good versus evil.
From the pen of rising comics writer Hannah Rose May (Rogues’ Gallery) and acclaimed artist Vanesa Del Rey (Scarlet Witch) comes this psychological tale perfect for fans of The Nice House on the Lake and The Haunting of Hill House.
Hitting shelves on August 19, 2025.
Stray Dogs
Writer: Tony Fleecs
Artist: Trish Forstner
Publisher: Image Comics
It’s scary being the new dog.
In this suspenseful new series, readers meet Sophie, a dog who can’t remember what happened. She doesn’t know how she ended up in this house. She doesn’t recognize any of these other dogs. She knows something terrible happened but she just… can’t… recall… Wait! Where’s her lady? It’s all coming back to her now, and it’s enough to raise Sophie’s hackles. Now Sophie has to figure out where she is, what’s happening and how she’s going to survive this.
They say there’s no such thing as a bad dog, just bad owners.
Stray Dogs is a heartbreakingly adorable suspense thriller by My Little Pony comic artists Tony Fleecs and Trish Forstner. It’s Lady and the Tramp meets Silence of the Lambs.
Collects Stray Dogs #1-5.
Seance in the Asylum
Writer: Clay McLeod Chapman
Artist: Leonardo Marcello Grassi
Publisher: Dark Horse
1865. The Civil War finally reaches its grueling end. Soldiers returning from the frontline come home broken, their minds shattered. An influx of patients overwhelms The Ashcroft Hospital, an asylum in upstate New York. Dr. John James Templeton is busy developing a radical new theory: spiritualism—the act of communicating with the dead—is its own form of therapy. What better way to draw out these mental maladies then with a little assistance from the other side? Templeton enlists Alicia Wilkinson, a medium who as a young girl established herself as a sought-after conduit capable of contacting the dead…but her own past continues to haunt her.
These séance sessions become a cutting-edge form of “spectral therapy,” where patients are permitted to converse with, perhaps expunge, their own maladies. By reaching out beyond the veil of our own world, these spirits aid in drawing out the illness of the patient. But something is changing in the patients. They are acting different…possessed, perhaps. Templeton’s experiment is a success. Too successful. It is up to Alicia to understand what is happening to the patients of Ashcroft…before it’s too late.
Collects Seance in the Asylum #1-4. Hitting shops on June 3, 2025.
Basketful of Heads
Writer: Joe Hill
Artist: Leomacs
Publisher: DC Comics
Heads will roll…
June Branch is in trouble. She’s trapped on Brody Island with nowhere to run. Her boyfriend, Liam, has been kidnapped. And four bloodthirsty escaped convicts will stop at nothing to find her.
All poor June has to defend herself with is a strange Viking axe with the terrifying power to decapitate a person and leave their head still talking.
If she’s going to save Liam and herself, June will have to keep a cool head…or even a whole basketful of them!
From #1 New York Times bestselling writer Joe Hill (NOS4A2, Locke & Key) comes Basketful of Heads, the first series in the smash-hit lineup of the Hill House Comics library. Featuring incredible artwork by Leomacs (Lucifer), this spine-tingling collection includes the entire seven-issue miniseries, as well as character designs and behind-the-scenes sketches.
Collects issues #1-7.
Those Not Afraid
Writer: Kyle Starks
Artist: Patrick Piazzalunga
Publisher: Dark Horse
Two serial killers discover they are within reach of the state record for kills and enter a terrible competition to see who gets there first. Learn more about our awful killers Mark Christopher Ewing and Daniel Dodson and their grotesque activities as we enter a frightening game of cat-and-mouse between killers and police. A great graphic novel for fans of true crime and murder fiction.
Featuring incredibly stylish noir art from Patrick Piazzalunga (Monsters Are My Business) and incredible covers from the legend Glenn Fabry (Preacher, Hellblazer).
Collects Those Not Afraid #1-4. Hitting shelves on August 25, 2025.
Rumpus Room
Writer: Mark Russell
Artist: Ramon Rosanas
Publisher: AWA Studios
A new-agey technocrat billionaire keeps an assortment of random people imprisoned in his “rumpus room” so that he may kill them, one by one, in order to make the not-over-the-counter facial cream that hides his morbid skin condition that gives his face a scaly, reptilian appearance. His one concession to his prisoners: they can democratically “elect” the next person to be placed in the cage from which he harvests the next victim in his deadly quest for facial hygiene!
Feral Vol. 1
Writer: Tony Fleecs
Artist: Trish Forstner
Publisher: Image Comics
Meet Elsie, Lord Fluffy Britches, and Patch, three indoor cats lost in the not-so-great outdoors during a nightmarish rabies outbreak.
Without their humans to protect them, the cats rush to find their way home before they’re eaten by the forest full of rabid beasts on their tails.
Don’t get bit. Don’t get scratched. Don’t become…FERAL.
Collecting Feral #1-5.
Houses of the Unholy
Writer: Ed Brubaker
Artist: Sean Phillips
Publisher: Image Comics
In this new tale, an FBI agent from the cult crime beat and a woman with a past linked to the Satanic Panic are drawn into a terrifying hunt for an insane killer hiding in the shadows of the underworld.
This pulse-pounding story asks: can you ever escape your past, or are all your bad decisions just more ghosts to haunt you, wherever you go?
Houses of the Unholy is a riveting horror thrill-ride from bestselling creators Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, the award-winning team behind Criminal (soon to be a TV series on Amazon Prime), Reckless, Night Fever and Where The Body Was.
A Haunted Girl
Writer: Ethan Sacks, Naomi Sacks
Artist: Marco Lorenzana
Publisher: Image Comics
The fate of all life on Earth depends on a girl who doesn’t know if she wants to live.
Cleo, a 16-year-old adopted Japanese-American whose anxiety and depression drives her to suicidal thoughts, is fresh out of the hospital and trying unsuccessfully to reintegrate back into her old life. What she doesn’t know is that her real struggles are just beginning as she finds herself encountering an increasingly terrifying succession of ghosts. Is she losing her grip on reality…or is the explanation much, much worse.
Courtesy of writers Ethan Sacks (Old Man Hawkeye, Star Wars: Bounty Hunters) and his daughter, Naomi Sacks and artist Marco Lorenzana (Hulk), this gripping saga aims to be both a paranormal thriller and an inspiration to those who are battling their own, less literal, demons in real life.
You can grab an Exclusive Extended Edition of A Haunted Girl via Zoop as well!
Harrower
Writer: Justin Jordan
Artist: Brahm Revel
Publisher: BOOM! Studios
There’s nothing to fear in the quaint town of Barlowe, New York–except, that is, for the Harrower. The children wish this boogeyman was just an urban legend, but this purveyor of puritanical vengeance is very real, and there’s no escape. The Harrower seems unkillable, and spans generations, always returning… Jessa Brink is a teenage girl obsessed with this menacing figure. Will she be able to escape the pull of her morbid fixation? What gruesome secrets will she uncover in the process? Especially as The Harrower begins to stalk her and her friends…
This deconstruction of the slasher genre from writer Justin Jordan (The Strange Talent of Luther Strode) and artist Brahm Revel (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) is the fresh and terrifyingly grounded take on the slasher genre horror fans have been dying for!
Collects Harrower #1-4.
Seven Years in Darkness: Year One
Writer: Joseph Schmalke
Artist: Joseph Schmalke
Publisher: Midnight Factory
From acclaimed comic creator Joseph Schmalke (We Don’t Kill Spiders, Phantom Starkiller) comes a dark sweeping fantasy epic. The Academy of Black Magic has opened its doors for the first time in over 200 years. 72 children are conscripted to enter its dimly-lit halls to study the dark arts in an environment devoid of the sun. Only seven will emerge to see daylight again. Their seven-year journey begins in Year One of Seven Years in Darkness.
